


Real Treasure

by wren_kt7oz



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wren_kt7oz/pseuds/wren_kt7oz
Summary: Written for 2018 qaf_giftxchnge on LJ, although this one is not, per se, a Christmas story.The request was for:Fic fluff/schmoop, hurt/comfort, sexy fun times Brian/Justin sexy domestic fluff or a health scare that prompts a relaxing vacationSo here it is.  It's set maybe 2 years post 513.  Justin returned from New York about 12 months ago, but they sold Britin and have been living at the loft.  Justin rents studio space.





	Real Treasure

"What do you mean 'you need to take a break'? Do you have any idea how much work I've got to get through in the next few weeks?"

"And how much of that work are you going to get done if you have a fucking heart attack?"

"I'm not going to have a damned heart attack, for fuck's sake!"

"You just about passed out last night when you finally decided to rejoin the human race. Why the fuck do you think that was?"

Justin felt himself flushing. He hated it when he gave Brian ammunition to use against him.

"Okay, so I was on a roll and maybe I didn't have enough to eat yesterday."

"Did you eat at all? Or did you take advantage of the fact that I've been away for three days to lock yourself into your studio and do the literal starving artist fucking routine?"

"I ate," Justin said defensively – although he couldn't honestly remember how many meals he'd had while Brian had been away. 

Brian sighed. He really did not want to fight about this, but it was clear to him that Justin had lost weight recently, and the last few days certainly hadn't helped.

"Okay. Tell me about the work you've got to do and what the deadlines are."

"Brian, I can manage my own fucking deadlines."

"Tell me."

Justin sighed. "I've still got two commissions from the last show to finish."

"Have you started them?"

"Well, one's just about done." He stopped and thought about it. "Well, they both are, really. One just needs a couple of highlights and the other needs to have a clear acrylic finish sprayed over it. The owner wants it to have a "highly artificial" look. Fucking wanker!" he found himself mumbling.

"That 'wanker' is paying you how much?" 

Justin gave him a sly grin, slanted up from under his eyelashes. "Twenty-five big ones."

They shared a quiet moment of amused pleasure in the thought that demands from pretentious wankers were pushing up the prices of Justin's work and thus contributing to his increasing success.

"So, what else?"

"Well I've got that show coming up in a few months …"

"It's the beginning of June, the show's not till September. How many pieces do you need?"

"At least twenty including two 'large exhibition pieces'." Justin's tone of voice expressed perfectly how he felt about that particular demand.

"And how many do you still have to do?"

"Probably five." Justin said, reluctance heavy in each syllable.

"And the big ones?" 

Justin sighed in exasperation. "I have three already, but …"

"You have three." Brian's own exasperation crept into his voice.

"Brian … "

"What else?"

"What?"

"You've got more than half of what you need done already, including the major pieces. You're not stressing out over doing 5 paintings in three months. What. Else?"

"I just … "

"What. Else?" The edge in Brian's voice cut through Justin's reluctance.

"I promised Michael I'd work on the next two Rage issues and he needs one by the end of this week."

All of that was said very quickly as he watched Brian suck his lips in, an expression Justin was all too familiar with. It invariably meant that he was biting back something he desperately wanted to say.

"I know I said I wouldn't work on Rage until the show was over, but Michael said …"

"Let me guess," Brian snapped, then, in a tolerably accurate impersonation of Michael's most irritating whine 'But Justin I really can't wait till September; I know that you don't need the money but I do."

"Well …"

"Justin – he has a husband who is a tenured professor, and he runs a reasonably successful comic store. The only reason he 'needs' the money is that he wastes a fucking fortune on his damned collectables. If he really needed the money, he could sell some of them in his fucking store."

Justin sighed, knowing perfectly well that Michael had played him – as usual. In his head, he heard Michael's voice rising excitedly as he said, "Besides, I've got some really good ideas and I need to get them done before they go out of my head."

Justin could identify with that itch – that certainty that if he didn't get his vision down on canvas or paper or even screen right this minute then it would be gone forever. Logically, he knew that was bullshit. That as long as he captured the general idea the way it grew and developed as he worked on it was organic and that the final product was never identical to his initial vision. That was even more true for Michael who could write everything down, right down to individual pieces of dialogue, and then they could flesh them out together later. But Michael had no concept at all of delayed gratification. For him, everything he wanted had to happen now, this minute, or the world was conspiring against him.

He sighed again.

"I told him I'd do it, Brian."

"Fine."

The single snapped syllable seemed to end the conversation as far as Brian was concerned, as he turned away, heading towards the steps up to the bedroom.

Justin bit his lip, knowing that they couldn't leave it there. He'd told Brian he wouldn't do any work on Rage until after September, and he'd gone back on that. He'd made Brian feel that his commitment to Michael meant more to him than the one he'd made to his partner. He went after Brian.

"I finished up the first one yesterday. I'll tell him I can't do the other till after the show."

Brian shrugged.

Justin, looking at him, realized how tired Brian himself was looking. He'd been so caught up in his own shit, he'd not noticed that his partner also was wearing himself out trying to meet ridiculous and often completely unnecessary deadlines.

"Look, I can finish up the two commissions today – there's only a few hours work to do on them."

Brian shot a sideways look at him but remained silent, waiting for him to go on.

"Everything else can wait. And now that you've sorted out the Boston shit, you should be able to leave everything else to Ted and Cynthia for a while. We could both take a break. Get away somewhere. Go now, before the school break starts and everywhere is full of kids."

Brian was about to snap that it wasn't that simple, that he couldn't just take off, but when he looked at Justin he saw a spark, a gleam of sunshine that had been missing for quite a while.

He sucked his lips in for a moment and then said, "Where?"

"Anywhere we like," Justin responded. "The Bahamas? Greece? Italy? Anywhere."

Brian was silent for a few moments, then he said slowly, "So you want to go overseas?"

Justin focused his full attention on him. "Not necessarily. Anywhere. As long as we really do take a break."

Brian nodded. Then he turned towards his work station and booted up his laptop.

"I've been looking at some places," he said. "I thought … it would be good if we had a holiday place, where we could go for some of the summer, get out of the fucking sweat box that the Pitts becomes. Invite the munchers, Daph, even your Mom and Molly if you wanted.

He brought up some images. 

"I thought that this one might work best for us. It has its own lake frontage and there aren't too many close neighbors."

 

 

 

"Oh my God!" Justin stared at the play of light and clouds on the surface of the lake and felt a hitherto unknown longing to be in that place, to be surrounded by that space and serenity.

Justin turned from the screen to stare at Brian. He could hardly believe Brian was suggesting this. His control-freak A-type personality partner was even more of an urbanite that he was.

"Are you serious?"

Brian nodded, looking away for a moment, then turning back to look deep into Justin's eyes in that way he did when he was desperate to be heard, but wasn't sure he'd find the words that normally came to him so readily.

"We need …" he gestured towards the screen where images of water and sky glowed softly. "We need somewhere that's not …"

Justin reached out and touched his face. "Yes. Yes, we do."

He felt himself relaxing just at the thought of having somewhere like this to escape to. How fucking typical of Brian to sense what he needed, what they needed, and start trying to find it without saying a word about it. 

"All those places are for sale, so … I thought maybe we could go up and see them. At least see that one. Check it out, spend a week or two. See how we cope with no fucking Thai deliveries, no Woody's, no Babylon."

"If I finish up the commissions today, and … but I have to pack them and arrange delivery …"

"We can leave them at Kinnetik. Cynthia will take care of all that shit. I'll drop whatever you've done for Rage off to Michael and make sure he knows it's all he's getting till after the show in September."

"Brian, you don't have to …"

"Yeah. I really do. I need to have a word with Mikey. He knew fucking well that we had an agreement about the Rage shit, because I fucking told him. And he still pressured you into doing it for him."

"I was the one who agreed," Justin pointed out. 

"Yeah. And you'll owe me a kazillion blow jobs. But Mikey has to learn not to pull this shit."

"So … we could leave tomorrow?"

Brian nodded. "If the place is available. I'll talk to Ted and Cynthia today. Organize to hire an SUV in case the roads up there are a bit dodgy …"

"Up where? Where is the house, exactly?"

"It's on a place called Treasure Lake. I'll have to get the exact address off the agent."

Justin took a deep breath, "Well, okay. I guess I'd better get to work." He hesitated and then nudged Brian with his elbow. "I owe you a lot more than a few blow jobs for this, you know."

Brian gave him one of his tongue in cheek smirks, then said, "I wouldn't exactly call a "kazillion blow jobs" just a few."

Justin grinned at him, then moved close to give him a kiss full of love and promises.

Snatching up his keys, he headed for his car. The sooner he got to the studio, the sooner the work would be finished and he could start packing for the first real holiday they'd ever taken together. They'd visited places together before – New York, Chicago, LA, even Tokyo, London and Paris – but they had all been business trips for one or both of them. They'd never really gone somewhere just to relax together. For a few moments, he wondered if they'd get so bored they'd wind up killing each other. But no … he knew how to handle a bored Brian, and blow jobs were only the beginning. Just the thought of the means he'd need to employ to keep Brian relaxed and happy made him horny. 

And no wonder, he thought to himself. Aside from a fairly perfunctory fuck last night – Brian had still been freaking out of his near pass-out, and he'd been exhausted – they hadn't fucked for days. Thank God he'd gotten the spray on acrylic. It would be a hell of a lot faster than trying to avoid brush strokes, and it would dry faster as well. He'd do one coat, then do the highlights on the other commission, and by that time the first painting would be dry enough to spray on a second coat.

By mid-afternoon he was in the supermarket, stocking up on non-perishable essentials to take with them when his cell phone buzzed. 

"Where the fuck are you?"

"The Quick Mart. Anything you can't live without for a couple of weeks?"

"Decent condoms and you won't get them there."

"Already have them. They were my first stop."

"I've got the SUV. Are those paintings dry enough to move yet?"

"I'll meet you at the studio. We can check."

"Did you finish packing? I saw the bags, but …"

"Yeah. I figured we won't need much." He heard his partner draw breath and cut in quickly, "I did pack a couple of decent outfits. Don't worry, I won't embarrass you if you want to go out somewhere fancy for dinner."

"Twat!"

"Love you too."

"Good. See you in a few."

Justin finished up his shopping and headed for his studio. The SUV was sitting on the street. He parked and started pulling boxes of groceries out of the trunk. Brian walked over and with only one scornful glance at all the food and other items, helped him pack it into the SUV. His bags, Justin noted, were already there. Looked like Brian intended to head off straight away.

They made sure there was room for the two paintings, then went upstairs. Justin judged both paintings dry enough to move, so they wrapped them lightly in brown paper and then in the acres of bubble wrap that he always kept handy. Within half an hour they were both carefully loaded into the SUV. 

"I'll meet you at Kinnetik. You can give Cynthia whatever instructions she needs, and you can leave your car in the parking garage. It'll be safe there."

Half an hour later they were on the road. Brian had programmed the address into the GPS. "It's some kind of fucking gate community up there. But I guess that means that we won't have to put up with the riff-raff swarming all over the place on every damned holiday."

Justin grinned at him. "Well, not until Deb and Mikey decide to visit, anyway."

Brian chuckled but went on. "The agent says this house is more isolated than most, and definitely has its own lakeside frontage which means people can't just tie up at our jetty and stroll across our lawns."

Justin winced a little, hesitant to bring this up, but knowing that he had to. "Can we afford this? I mean, shouldn't we just think about renting somewhere for the summer or something?"

Brian shrugged. "I ran the numbers with Ted. He says it makes more sense to buy because we can write off some shit against our taxes. He also says it's a good time to buy because there are quite a few properties on sale in that area at the moment. We can get a reasonable deal. It will only cost around four hundred grand."

'Only!' Justin thought. But then he thought about what it would cost to rent somewhere every summer, or to go away on a vacation staying at Brian's beloved five star hotels and reconsidered. It probably was a good deal.

"The place has got four bedrooms, so as long as everyone doesn't descend on us at once, we can provide holiday accommodation for your Mom and Molly as well as the munchers."

"And Gus," Justin said.

Brian took a careful breath, almost . "And Gus," he agreed.

"We could have the kids for most of the summer break. Mel and Linds could come for a week or so – whatever they can manage, and Michael and Ben for a couple of weeks …"

Brian shrugged again. Justin went silent for a while, planning out the arguments he'd need to get the girls to agree to that one. 

"There's some space that I think you could use to paint, although you'll need to check that out for yourself. And I can work remotely most of the time. If I have to go down for meetings and shit, it's only a couple of hours' drive. And there's a heliport at Dubois airport – that's only half an hour away, so worst case scenario, I can hire a chopper if either of us has to get anywhere in a hurry. If you need to get to New York, that might be an option if there are no commercial flights."

Justin felt his heart hammering. Brian was totally serious about this. Serious about them having a refuge, a retreat, where they could still work, but at a more reasonable pace, and where they had space to play and to relax and enjoy each other in a way that they hadn't really had since he'd returned from New York.

Perhaps selling the mansion Brian had bought had been a bad idea, but after a couple of weeks of trying to commute daily to the office, they'd effectively wound up living at the loft anyway except for weekends. And the place was huge. They'd had to hire both a housekeeper and a part time gardener, and then the housekeeper had still asked for them to hire more help with the cleaning. Not to mention paying for pool servicing, and other sundry expenses. It just hadn't been worth it.

But this was different. It was a reasonable size – they certainly wouldn't need a housekeeper, although they'd probably try to find a cleaning service in the neighborhood. There was no pool to maintain. And best of all it was far enough away that they wouldn't even be tempted to try to commute regularly. It was a way to force them to take time away for themselves. 

He let his hand rest on Brian's thigh, giving it a soft squeeze. He knew that words didn't mean a lot to his partner, but sometimes small gestures spoke to him loudly and clearly. Looking sideways at him now as Brian concentrated on his driving, Justin was happy to see that beloved face looking more relaxed than he'd seen it in a long while. He figured he probably looked the same. 

They reached the agent's office late in the afternoon. The woman was waiting for them and had a rental agreement for them for the next two weeks as well as a possible purchase contract for them to look over. 

"The current owner is happy to have the place occupied and is pretty confident that once you get a taste of this life, you will be keen to go ahead with the purchase."

She insisted on coming with them to the house to insure they knew how everything worked, but once they'd gone over the air-con, the central heating, the back up generator and the gas-fired outdoor cooking area, she left them to it.

Justin had hardly been able to concentrate on anything she'd said, constantly distracted by glimpses of the evening sunlight glinting off the clear waters of the lake and the soft movement of the trees in the wind.

Brian, aside from giving him an occasional smirk, was happy to pick up the slack and go over all the details. By the time she'd finished, Justin had given up even pretending to listen and was sitting on the deck, sketching, his cell phone already half-full of photos.

He did join Brian to escort her to her car however, and then, arms around each other's waists, they made their way down to the lake shore.

Standing there together in the evening light, both of them felt a deep sense of contentment. Brian, watching the tight lines ease away from around Justin's mouth and eyes, seeing the way his artist's soul was responding to the physical peace and beauty around them, experienced a profound sense of relief. He'd hardly been able to admit to himself how worried he'd been about his partner. 

It wasn't just that Justin hadn't been eating properly and had lost weight; he hadn't been sleeping properly either and had been increasingly tense and tight-wound. Brian knew that his own work pre-occupation hadn't helped, but he was determined to put that behind him. He'd been reminded of the time when he'd been receiving his cancer treatment – how difficult things had been them for both of them. He'd gotten a clean bill of health again on his last check up and was determined that he wasn't going to forget the lessons he'd learned at that time. Namely, that there were other things in life than work and he had other priorities that were much more important to him. First among those, was the young man at his side.

Justin, finally tearing his eyes away from the play of light on water, turned to smile up at the man who'd brought them here, and felt his heart turn over. For just a moment he remembered how thin and drawn and ill Brian had looked during his cancer scare, and he realized that lately those same lines had been appearing on his face.

Now, however, he was actually smiling and Justin felt himself smiling back in response. They were going to be okay. They were going to spend two weeks here doing nothing but fucking and eating and lazing around and then they were going to buy the place, or somewhere very like it. They were going to share wherever they bought with their friends and family. And they were going to remember that there were far more important things in life than burying yourself in work.

Right now, though, a very important thought was dominating his mind.

"I'm fucking starving," he announced. "Is there anywhere around here we can get food?"

Brian laughed, delighted to see his Sunshine was back. "I'm told there are several very fine dining places close by," he responded.

"Well, come on then. What are we waiting for?"

They headed off to eat. But not before they kissed for the first time on the shores of the lake that had brought them real treasure. And would continue to do so for many years to come.


End file.
